Sunday, February 05, 2006

Hooray! What a good solution to the name game. I really hope combining partner names catches on. I used to think I'd keep my name, if/when I got married, if I was already 'established' in my field. It has only been in the past couple of years that it has really occurred to me that changing my name feels, well, frankly, insulting. And I don't mean to disparage the choices of individuals. I'm just saying, for me, it now feels wrong (in this totally hypothetical scenario). But the whole kid thing complicates just about any name choice - hyphenated names are inevitably a mouthful, potentially having a different name than my kids makes me sort of sad, giving up my name entirely makes me sad, copying a friend's parents and (in the case of multiple kids) alternating last names seems even more complicated. So why not meld?

4 Comments:

On the topic of your "name" being established in your field: no one requires you use your current legal name for publications. If you want to give presentations, attend coferences, or continue to publish under your maiden name, there's nothing stopping you... thus you can continue using your "established" name on everything except legal documents.

My brother recently dealt with this when he got married. First he checked with me to see what Jen and I were doing about names/kids (to make sure the name was being continued)... ultimately what he and she decided was to take her name as a second middle name, and use his last name.